There is one word to describe Google apps and that is Google Mail for your domain. Not onlyits a powerful source for managing your emails but it is also free (standard edition). While it is a little overkill for a one man band but when a small / medium business wants an email which can do almost everything, this is a service which is invaluable service.
I advise any small company to check out Google Apps as their primary email resource.
For the last few weeks I have been working with this client who sends out bulk emails to gain information for his clients. To be able to do this, i have been assigned to create email templates which when the user clicks leads to a form and logs information within a database.
My problem is that to create these emails is alot more complex than normal static web building. Testing with email clients within different browsers causes issues as every email client seems to display html templates differently. Outlook seems to be one of the worst cases for rendering templates. Outdated code, limited styling brings HTML emails back to the dark ages of website design.
Software for mass emailing such as “Mailing Manager” offer tools to help check rendering with email clients such as AOL and GMAIL and also help to reduce targeted words which could send your emails to the spam folder.
In my line of work it is important to keep up to date with the latest trend but it is also important to remember the old outdated information in case you require it.